Elbowoods Memorial Clinic approaching completion

Work on the exterior of the Elbowoods Memorial Clinic is almost finished and finishing work inside the building is moving ahead. The clinic is scheduled to open in less than two months, said clinic project manager James Foote.
The clinic is the culmination of many years of work, Foote said. The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation was promised replacement health care when the Elbowoods Hospital was submerged under Lake Sakakawea with the rest of that community in the 1950s. It was only in the last few years that Congress passed funding for the clinic through the work of Byron Dorgan. Foote said the name of the clinic was chosen to remember the old hospital.
“Chairman Hall started the process back in 2003,” said Bonnie Red Fox, federal program manager for the tribe. “There was a lot of leg work before we could break ground. I can’t comprehend how close we are to completion. Just to see a picture of it was exciting and to see it now as a structure is even more exciting. You just get tickled hearing that the doors are going to be opened.”